It’s not your fault
After the government moved to regulate the tobacco industry in the 1960s, tobacco companies responded by investing heavily in food manufacturing to find new customers. It was part of a concerted effort to engineer food that would be irresistible to people. What they discovered were sugar, fat, carbohydrates and sodium in combinations that are irresistible because they trigger our brains’ reward system, according to a new study published in the journal “Addiction.” “Betcha can’t eat just one!” was more than just a Lay’s slogan for potato chips. “These foods have combinations of ingredients that create effects you don’t get when you eat those ingredients separately.” “These combinations don’t really exist in nature, so our bodies aren’t ready to handle them,” Tera Fazzino, University of Kansas. The tobacco firms had decades of extensive scientific research into flavorings, chemical additives and colorings that were used to market cigarettes. “R.J. Reynolds is in the flavor business,” one insider wrote in a company memo, adding that many of the flavors the company had created for cigarettes “would be useful in food, beverage and other products,” leading to “large financial returns.”
Ever wondered why it’s so hard to eat just one Chip, Oreo or M&M? We crave sugar and salt when we know healthier options are available. The answer lies in the addictive nature of sugar and salt, and the intense and immediate pleasure they provide. Sugar impacts the brain 20 times faster than nicotine, and foods that are highly processed and sweetened are the most addictive. Scientists now refer to their sugary-sweet, fatty and salty creations as “hyperpalatable.” We can even talk about the noise that potato chips make. They discovered that the more crunchy potato chips have, the more we will eat. Rates of obesity increased sharply: from 13.4% in 1980 to 34.3% in 2008 among adults, and from 5% to 17% among children. Now, an estimated 68% of the American food supply is hyperpalatable. Snacking has become this fourth meal in America. On average, we’re now getting something like 550 calories a day, a quarter of all the calories we get from snack foods that we’re eating, which by definition, we’re eating fast and hitting the brain fast.
The success of these hyperpalatable products is rooted in the science behind addiction, according to researchers. They contain ingredients — some natural, some synthetic — that have been purified, concentrated and are rapidly absorbed into our blood streams, amplifying their ability to light up our brains’ reward centers. That’s why people who eat hyperpalatable foods are more prone to obesity and other health problems, even when they don’t intend to overeat. So you now understand that it is the government’s fault that so many Americans are fat. If they would have left the tobacco companies alone people would have died younger and before so many of us could get fat.
Government enforced overeating
Never ask a woman who is eating ice cream straight from the carton how she’s doing.
I got banned from Olive Garden for eating too many breadsticks.
“How many did you eat?”
“Olive them.”
My wife was on a healthy food kick. Trying to serve organic foods and lots of vegetables instead of the high fat, high sugar stuff I was used to. After a very correct supper she asked me what I would want for desert. “Would I like an orange or an apple?”
I replied, “an orange or apple what?”
Two hillbillies walk into a restaurant. While having a bite to eat, they talk about their crops. Suddenly, a woman eating a sandwich at a nearby table begins to cough. After a minute or so, it becomes apparent that she is in real distress.
One of the hillbillies looks at her and says: “Kin ya swallar?”The woman shakes her head no. Then he asks: “Kin ya breathe?” The woman begins to turn blue and shakes her head no.
The hillbilly walks over to the woman, lifts up her dress, yanks down her drawers, and quickly gives her right butt cheek a lick with his tongue.
The woman is so shocked that she has a violent spasm, and the obstruction flies out of her mouth. As she begins to breathe again, the hillbilly walks slowly back to his table.
His partner says: “Ya know, I’d herd of that there ‘Hind Lick Maneuver’ but I never seed nobody done it.”
September 27th Birthdays
1987 – Hillary Duff, 1973 – Gwyneth Paltrow, 1983 – Anna Camp, 1978 – Dana Loesch
1965 – Steve Kerr, 1934 – Wilford Brimley, 1933 – Greg Morris, 1982 – Anderson Varejão